At some point in your life, there's a decent chance a teacher or facilitator has given you some simple household items and asked you to build a tower with a group of your peers. A famous experiment pits groups of kindergarteners against CEOs and other high-performing professionals, and the kindergarteners tend to win. Why?

Simply put, the children go out and try lots of things quickly while the adults sit down and plan. 

"The lesson here isn't that MBAs are stupid; it's that iteration and experimentation is the winning strategy."

As leaders, teachers, and entrepreneurial thinkers, how can we start where we are, with what we have, to achieve a goal or test an idea? Maybe there's something we can learn from the young children in our lives. 

Hat tip to Ice House Facilitator Stephen Taylor, Ph.D. of Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, for sharing this article with us. If you have been reading, watching, or listening to things that make you think of the entrepreneurial mindset, be sure to send them to us, and we may feature them in future publications!

So you’re setting out to test an assumption that you hope will solve a problem in the world that others will value. As we reflected in the previous article, it is important to start testing ideas rather than carefully planning, especially in the early stages of an idea. But knowing how potential users will interact with the concept is also essential.

If you’re establishing a new service, it is paramount that you do not assume what your customers need. Otherwise, you’ll end up with dissatisfied clients and few future prospects. So, how do you learn what people actually want and need? One simple yet effective tool is the empathy map. 

Learn more about empathy maps and how to use them in this illuminating blog from the Nielsen Norman Group.